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kerouac1215
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Name: Josh
Country: United States
State: It varies from month
Birthday: 12/15/1985
Interests: Reading, learning, theatre, chess, climbing, hockey, ultimate frisbee, corresponence...come on, people...it's a long list.
Expertise: I'm good at what I love. See interests.
Occupation: Student
Industry: Other
Message: message me
AIM:  kerouac1215
Member Since:
8/18/2004
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| - giving up the ghost
I wish I could love without skepticism, love as I once did when I thought I understood people. Now that I have followed Polonius’ advice and been “to mine own self true,” I find a void wherein lies an intro-referential “true self.” The atom has divorced itself of outliers, and all that remains is the nucleus. I am but an atom capable of thought, after all. But where do I fit in the fragile, crystalline structure of life? Why do my interactions with other atoms matter? My atomic self simply thrives on codependency. I form irrevocable molecular bonds with others—when those bonds break, the results are often cataclysmic. The separating parties lose and gain parts in the atomic split. Little pieces of skin and memory are both rent and gruesomely grafted until the involved atoms scarcely resemble one another. Over the years of splitting and fusing, I’ve started to wonder where others’ particles begin and mine end. I’m looking for my nucleus.
I’ve always wondered where the literary convention of the heart came from. The heart is the primary organ of physical life, but why does love (literarily) come from it? The image of a broken heart altogether slights all that the other party lost and you gained. We keep happy memories of our past lives stored in the deep corners, our nuclei (or hearts, if you prefer)—they get us through times of doubt and darkness, when we speculate over love’s very existence.
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| I got up at noon today; I've been reading War and Peace ever since. It's one of those Sewanee weekend days when you simply don't want to leave your room for one reason or another. I'll leave when I hit page 210 (dinnertime), and perhaps go and kick around at McClurg for awhile. I want to say something profound, but my brain's stuck in nineteenth-century Russia...
So for a lack of something profound, I'll say this: I wish I could find a girl to play with my hair. That would make today perfect.
a good peace to all, and to all a good piece.
Josh | | |
| Today disappointment hit me with a dull, resounding thud. Not just any thud, but the thud of a monkey kicked down a long flight of stairs. People move on. It just leaves me empty somehow, a nagging, throbbing ache that weighs my actions. I’m Sam Spade in a strange Noir world where the how and the who of the crime are painfully clear, but the why continues to elude me. I did everything right; I was supportive, agreeable (even when I wasn’t feeling that way), loving and attentive. And she left me. Kicked the monkey down the stairs after months of faithful organ grinding. I hope to someday be in a relationship where in the latter stages I don’t feel like some kind of pandering, dancing, frantic simian joke. In objective retrospect, I spent too much time picking up whatever emotions are left at the end of the day, positive or negative. I just don’t think I can do that anymore. I look at healthy, productive non-platonic relationships and it becomes more readily apparent to me that I’ve never really had one. This fact makes me sad. For one reason or another (distance, mental health, parental influence, lies) most every non-platonic relationship I’ve been in has been, quite simply put, fucked.
I hold hope for the future and indeed for womankind as well, I’m just disillusioned—not about things in general, not about people, not about friendship, but about Relationships with a capital R. I feel like someone who invested lots of money in Enron. I’m not even looking anymore. Last year, I was the idealist…this year, my watchword is “I guess we’ll see…”
Peace all, and thanks for listening.
Here's the aforementioned entry from a week or so ago...
And as soon as I figure out why my computer is slow as hell, I’ll be in my happy place again. I have all sorts of unnecessary processes running, and and and…URGGH!
Anyway, I went to the faculty party and ended up schmoozing with the adults in varying stages of inebriety. All seemed happy to see me, but about halfway through one delivery (of many, mind you) of my “I had a great summer, I kept really busy, I learned a lot, I go back to school in three days, no rest for the wicked” speech, I realized I absolutely detested the member of the faculty I was addressing. But all the same, I put forth the false pretense that I had a connection with this person. I pretended to like him, for only a minute. From that moment on, I went through the party paranoid: how many of the people talking to me simply tolerated my presence, thinking me an arrogant prick or what-have-you in their spare time? And for every self-indulgent “what does this person really think of me?” curiosity, I reminded myself that I don’t care what others think, that I simply “do my own thing” for whatever it’s worth, whether the eternally vague punk antagonist “they” like it or not. (My sincere apologies, I know my sentence structure is a little unclear tonight.) So ultimately, I don’t care if you like me. I like myself.
Someday I want to sit down without distraction, interruption, or time constraint, and write a rant of no less than Joycean proportions, complete with made up words and never-ending sentences. I guess it’s an ambition of mine, if you can call incoherent genius an ambition. I suppose it’s not genius if it’s incoherent, is it? One arguing otherwise would say “well, it’s on another intellectual level; the common man couldn’t understand it.” But when I can write Joycean sentences within the framework of Standard English, then I’ve gotten somewhere.
Also at the party, I got in a horrendously pointless argument with a fundamentalist friend of mine. The more I debated with him, the more I realized that beliefs were stumbling blocks. All his arguments were based on “true” statements—statements that superceded all explanation and any metaphysical construct. Essentially, if I asked “why” about any of his “true” statements, he could only say “that’s just the way it is” or some such. There’s apparently no such thing as subjectivity, and despite philosophical nuance or other observation, he and his are right. Period. His final statement, met with my silence, was “you’re either mad at me, you’re thinking, or you know I’m right.” I groaned inwardly at his arrogance. (Josh definition time! Internalized complacence is self-confidence. Externalized complacence is arrogance. My natural state is internalized complacence.) I looked at him frankly and said: “No, Philip. I’m just rolling my eyes on the inside.” Whenever I argue with Philip, I start out full of words and ideas, but by the end, I am muted by his thinly veiled ignorance. He’s always been proud of his vocabulary, and his ability to relay the Holy Spirit through concise, logical statements….you can put a dog in a dress, but it’s still a dog. No amount of linguistic frou-frou can fully obscure narrow-mindedness.
if you're still reading, then thank you, and cheers! | | |
| I'm so damn tired I really shouldn't be writing anything at the moment, but here goes. I was up til 3 last night packing and talking with one of my best friends--she spent a semester in Ireland, so I hadn't seen her in forever. I beat her at chess and scrabble and we discovered the disgusting definition of the damn MONTH...
Main Entry: Bang's disease
Pronunciation: 'ba[ng]z-
Function: noun
: BRUCELLOSIS; specifically : contagious abortion of cattle caused by a bacterium of the genus Brucella (B. abortus) called also Bang's
I can see the cow fetuses flopping out en masse. Teve and I thought about the noise it all must make...sort of a *shthp...plop* anything more drawn out would imply higher impact force...I mean, imagine a cow aborting from an airplane...you'd have a completely different set of sounds, from the accellarated drop to the meaty thud. But such conjecture begs the question: would an aborted cow fetus bounce? If so, I'm thinking *woosh! THUD...smack...smack...SPLAT*
So now that you all think I'm totally insane, I'd like everyone to know that I'll be at school in less than nine hours!!! I'm so excited!
My dad told me he couldn't wait to see how I decorate my room in McCrady. I told him it'd be messy as hell by the time he got there. It reminded me of an incident first semester. I once "pursued" someone who attached a great deal of significance to cleanliness. She said "your room is a pig sty" with her pretentious hands on her pretentious hips. Of course, HER room was immaculate. By that time I'd had quite enough. I asked her "what grades do you have?" She replied "three Bs, one C." I put on a shit-eating grin and said "well, some of us just have better things to do with our time than clean. I'd rather have a 4.0 and a pig sty, frankly--which I do."A consistently clean room is a sign of a poorly prioritized--if not sick--mind .
So yeah. To the car. TO SCHOOL!!!
Good piece,
Josh | | |
| I go back to college tomorrow!!! I have heard of cute girls and good weather and music and three liters of whiskey that has to go somewhere...yep, it's college alright.
I recently started a great exercise in schizophrenia; I'm reading three books at once...I'm reading Les Mis (for reasons beyond logic), the Bell Jar, and Libra. I alternate chapters, and I have yet to mix plotlines up (always a plus).  I've also started another little academic project: since I want to take french second semester, I'm learning basic stuff now so 101 is a breeze--maybe I can even move into the "intermediate" (ooh, scary) level. But yeah, my pet project is to teach myself French in my spare time (spare time...*barely contained laughter*).
Although I hear the mountain calling, I miss HRT. I miss Re and Will and Erin and Phil and everybody. *sigh* I have absolutely nothing to say today. Sorry people. I'm in reading mode, not writing mode. Give me some time and I'll see what I can do in the way of writing. Until then...meh.
Love to all.
A good piece to all, and to all a good piece....
Josh | | |
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